Adams wants to halt NYC shelter law amid surge of asylum seekers
(The Center Square) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams has asked an administrative judge to suspend the city’s decades-old shelter law in response to a surge of tens of thousands of asylum seekers.
In a request to Deputy Chief Administrative Judge Deborah Kaplan Adams calls on the court to modify a 1981 court decree requiring the city to provide shelter for homeless individuals. The proposed changes would allow the city to deny shelter if it lacks the resources, staffing or housing capacity to provide it.
“Given that we’re unable to provide care for an unlimited number of people and are already overextended, it is in the best interest of everyone, including those seeking to come to the United States, to be upfront that New York City cannot single-handedly provide care to everyone crossing our border,” Adams said in a statement.
Earlier this month, Adams signed an executive order that temporarily suspended a city law that requires shelter beds for homeless families and children within a specific time frame. The order also allowed the Adams administration to house families in private rooms, such as hotels, instead of group settings.
But a pair of homeless advocacy groups vowed to “vigorously oppose” Adams’ request to the court to suspend the city’s shelter law.
“The Administration’s request to suspend the long-established State constitutional right that protects our clients from the elements is not who we are as a city,” the Legal Aid Society and Coalition for the Homeless said in a joint statement.
“New Yorkers do not want to see anyone, including asylum seekers, relegated to the streets,” the groups said. “We will vigorously oppose any motion from this Administration that seeks to undo these fundamental protections that have long defined our city.”
The legal tussle comes as Adams steps up criticism of the Biden administration over its handling of the border crisis.
On Monday, Gov. Kathy Hochul joined Adams in calling for expedited work permits for newly arriving asylum seekers and criticized the federal government for not providing more funding.
New York City officials say they have taken in more than 70,000 asylum seekers and spent $1 billion to provide housing, food and other assistance, with the costs expected to skyrocket to $4 billion by next year.
Many migrants are being housed in hotels repurposed by the city as make-shift refugee centers at a cost to the state’s taxpayers.
“We now have more asylum seekers in our care than New Yorkers experiencing homelessness when we came into office,” Adams said.
But as the Democratic mayor has tried to divert some asylum seekers to upstate locations, he has faced fierce pushback from county leaders who’ve enacted emergency orders and gone to court to block plans to house migrants in local hotels.
The wrangling over housing migrants follows the lapse of Title 42, a policy that has for three years allowed federal immigration officials to quickly return asylum seekers over the border on the grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.
Federal immigration officials reported waves of asylum seekers along the U.S.-Mexico border ahead of the end of Title 42 two weeks ago, but said a surge that was expected following the policy’s expiration hasn’t materialized.
